Greek Confetti by the Pittsburgh MQG

By Michele Krugh

The Pittsburgh Modern Quilt Guild has enjoyed participating in multiple previous QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenges. We’ve learned to solicit design ideas from our guild members and form a committee to organize the quilt making (buying all the fabric for the quilt, making packets for members to make blocks from, etc.),

An informal brainstorming session on the theme of Modern Traditionalism resulted in a lot of fun design ideas, including focusing on one traditional block and using a lot of low volume prints.I loved the idea of deconstructing a traditional block by using color untraditionally to highlight only some elements of the block. I envisioned a confetti of colors across a low volume quilt.

The traditional Greek Cross block stood out as a great starting point with its mix of half-square triangles, rectangles and squares. Since many members had enjoyed the challenge of improv piecing in some of our guild’s previous QuiltCon charity quilts, we left it up to the members if they wanted to use traditional or improv piecing to make their block(s).

One of the best parts of making a group quilt is seeing the quilt come together during a group sew day. It was great to see all the variations among the blocks our members had made and how well they all came together as a quilt top.

Then, of course, it’s amazing to see how the quilting ties everything together and transforms a quilt!

Long-arm quilter Nikki Maroon used straight-line quilting to create the cross and HST elements of one large Greek Cross block using contrasting thread. The “background” areas of the large Greek Cross block were quilted with graffiti quilting to add visual interest without distracting from the impact of the straight lines.

We are excited to have our guild quilt hanging at QuiltCon in Pasadena, CA this year. We are also hoping to enter it in a few local shows in 2018 so that more of our members have the opportunity to see the quilt on display! And finally, in the coming months we will discuss as a guild where we would like to donate the quilt.

To learn more about the Pittsburgh MQG, visit their Instagram @pghmqg.